The present invention relates to computer systems and more particularly to digital messages accessed by computer systems.
The Internet is a worldwide system of computer networksxe2x80x94a network of networks in which a user at one computer can obtain information from any other computer (and communicate with users of the other computers). The Internet was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the ARPANet. The original aim was to create a network that would allow users of a research computer at one university to be able to communicate with research computers at other universities. To assure that the network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed, such as by a military attack or natural disaster, a key design requirement of ARPANet was a facility for bi-directional message routing in a communication link.
The Internet has evolved into a public, cooperative, and self-sustaining facility accessible to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The most widely used part of the Internet is the World Wide Web (often abbreviated xe2x80x9cWWWxe2x80x9d or called xe2x80x9cthe Webxe2x80x9d). One important feature of the Web is its use of hypertext documents, a method of instant cross-referencing. On many Web sites, certain words or phrases appear in text of a different color than the rest; often this text is also underlined. When one of these words or phrases is selected, it functions as a hyperlink, transferring the user to the site or page that is linked to this word or phrase. Sometimes there are buttons, images, or portions of images that are xe2x80x9cclickable.xe2x80x9d
Using the Web provides access to millions of pages of information. Web surfing is done with a Web browser; the most popular of which are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The appearance of a particular Web site may vary slightly depending on the particular browser used. Recent versions of browsers have plug-ins, which provide animation, virtual reality, sound, music, and display of text in controlled form.
Because the Internet evolved from the ARPAnet, a research experiment that supported the exchange of data between government contractors and academic researchers, an on-line culture developed that is sometimes alien to the corporate business world. Although the Internet was not designed to make commercialization easy, commercial Internet publishing and e-commerce have rapidly evolved. In part it is the very ease with which anyone can publish a document that is accessible by a large number of people that makes electronic publishing attractive. Setting up an e-commerce site can typically be accomplished with low overhead while providing access to a worldwide market 24 hours a day. The growth and popularity of the Internet is providing new opportunities for commercialization including but not limited to Web sites driven by electronic commerce, ad revenue, branding, database transactions, and intranet/extranet applications.
Domain names direct where e-mail is routed, files are found, and computer resources are located. They are used when accessing information on the Web or connecting to other computers through Telnet. Internet users enter the domain name, which is automatically converted to the Internet Protocol address by the Domain Name System (DNS).
For many Internet users, electronic mail (e-mail) has substantially replaced the Postal Service for written transactions. E-mail is the most widely used application on the Internet. Live xe2x80x9cconversationsxe2x80x9d can be carried on with other computer users, using Internet Relay Chat (IRC). More recently, Internet telephony hardware and software allows real-time voice conversations.
E-mail was one of the first services developed on the Internet. Today, e-mail is an important service on any computer network, not just the Internet. E-mail involves sending a message from one computer account to another computer account. E-mail is used to send textual information as well as files, including graphic files, executable files, word processing and other files. E-mail is becoming a popular way to conduct business over long distances. Using e-mail to contact a business associate can be more effective than using a voice telephone, because the recipient can read it at a convenient time, and the sender can include as much information as needed to explain the situation.
On-line commerce, or xe2x80x9ce-commercexe2x80x9d, uses the Internet, of which the Web is a part, to transfer large amounts of information about numerous goods and services in exchange for payment or customer data needed to facilitate payment. Potential customers can supply a company with shipping and invoicing information without having to tie up sales staff. The convenience offered to the customer is primarily that of avoiding a trip to one or more traditional xe2x80x9cbricks and mortarxe2x80x9d establishment in search of a desired product.
The expanding use of e-mail, FTP and other forms of digital message communication is widely displacing traditional paper communications. The Internet is an essential communications tool for individuals, professional users, companies, and government and military agencies. Global interconnectivity and rapid data transfer are among the benefits enjoyed its millions of users. While the Internet provides an undeniably useful environment for data exchange, security is not integrated into its design. In fact, the very concept behind the Internet is a robust open packet communication system.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a system for controlled message distribution.
A method is disclosed for secure transmission of a message via a network wherein a recipient of the message need not be a party to the network or maintain an active address in the network. Instead, new accounts are created dynamically by the system of the invention in response to a message addressed to an unknown user by sender who is a party to the network. In the operation of the method of the invention, messages from a network-party sender addressed to such an unknown user are deposited into a unique account created for the addressed recipient. That addressed recipient is notified via a non-network communication path that a message is stored and available to it, and is provided instructions for accessing a network address to retrieve its message.